Meet the Cynocephali!

Hi!

Another group of miniatures finally got the loving they deserved after two years in the "tomorrow, really" drawer.

This time it is a group of Cynocephali, the dog-headed race from the other side of the Rotten sea that is known for their war-like, cruel and human-hating nature in general.

They are generally described as having human bodies and dog heads, but some claim they have goat legs or even one eye at the front and one at the back of their skull!

The eldest will have you know the dreaded soldiers ride in battle on horse-back and howl!

While the idea of Cynocephali is really, really old, the resemblance to Atila and the Huns is evident. Later, the Pasjeglavci/Pesjani/Pasjedlani as they are called in Slovenia, were associated with the Turks, whom in their invasion of the Balkans and push to the Vienna left a lasting impact on the region to a point where everything bad was associated with them for hundreds of years after they were gone.

Among others, there is a tale of Pes Marko ( "Mark the Dog",). Marko was born by a count's daughter that was locked up in a jail (tower) by her father. He gave her a dog to play with, which made her pregnant and thus she born Pes Marko. He eventually became the leader of Venice and pillaged the city in rage.

This tale supposedly originates from middle ages, during the wars between the Holy Roman Empire (that included most of today's Slovenia) and Venice, which is known for Saint Mark and venetian lion - you get the rest!



I imagined these ruthless creatures would be the most common enemies of any heroes wandering in the land of old gods and made four of them. A leader armed with an axe, a bow man for some long-range support and two spear grunts.

For the soldiers, I simply used some of left over GW Ungors I had from the Dunwich project. I have to admit I really like the miniatures. They are plastic and easy to work with, they are on the large side and quite cartoony, which I think fits well with the fantasy. I did, however, cut the axe to something more manageable.  

 Other than that I gave them a quick paint job and that's about it. They were kept very simple and I really have to say the photos don't do them justice. Surely I shouldn't just go with black pelt and the brown is all wrong, but overall I am quite satisfied.

In other news, I am preparing some of my own sculpts/conversions for moderns and fantasy and looking at my Strange Aeons collection, I really think I should start a campaing - which brings me to my Moderns, that I would like to at least remotely finish first. Ah, so many plans!

Meet Kresnik!

Hello guys,

Almost 2 years ago - I checked the blog history - I started converting Horrorclix's Fiend (Frankenstein monster) into a Kersnik, a local Slavic pagan (demi)god. .

To refresh your memory, influenced by SAGA and 7th Voyage that were both really popular back then, I decided to start a project, where wandering pagan party - consisting of nothing but heroes, of course - would fight the creatures of the lore with the intention of saving a damsel in distress or performing a similarly important deed. Equally, the mythos creatures could be used in games of Strange Aeons and would give me something to sculpt and convert. Evidently, the project didn't live long, but as I am clearing my old stuff, I decided to restart it.

Kresnik is the most common god (or semi-god) in Slovenian mythology, so he was an obvious choice for my god on earth. It appears to be a very localised deity, only known in Slovenia and parts of Croatia.
Mythos wise, he is a rather complicated character and it is believed that Kresnik is either Perun himself (kind of a Slavic Thor); that his brother, named Trot is Perun; that Kresnik is Perun's son.

As omnipotent gods would not be any kind of fun to game with, I decided to go with the semi-god option. Thus, Kresnik is a "Hercules" type of character, a son of Perun and mortal. As the luck would have it, it is believed that Kresnik did the 12 deeds, too!
According to the legend, the Son of lightning Kresnik was carried by his mother for whole nine years.  He was close to the people and in some versions, every village had a Kresnik of their own, protecting them from foul creatures and being that would want to hurt them or humanity. Those include, but are not limited to: Veles (Perun's arch nemesis), dragons, giant snakes, giant snake queens, false Kresniks (these are the worst!), vampires, cynocephali, centaurs etc etc.
Kresnik is not immortal and can die, but always returns to the world.


He has the arms and hair of gold and carries an axe, mace, lightning bolt or a knife. 

At first I had high plans of sculpting my own, but I've decided to simply convert Horrorclix's The fiend instead. I got him a veeeeery long time ago from Vampifan - THANKS AGAIN!

The fiend is taller than ordinary human being, being almost 50mm tall, so he was perfect candidate for a god on Earth. I've cut him off his base and cleaned him up a bit. I've cut off the shackles, cleaned up the nails in his spine and made some other surgical tasks, before giving him a nice shirt, girly long hair and a manly beard.

Below is an eons old photo of him, before he was equipped with the second axe as well. If I am not mistaken, his hair were slightly retouched, as was his shirt, but no major work was done.

Then I left him in my drawer, forgotten until last week. To paint him, I went with a simple linen shirt that is these days associated with the pagan Slavs. Those are very popular in Russia and Ukraine, which is where Slovene "neo pagans" imported them from. I do not recall reading about them being worn here. I would presume 6th century Alpine Slavs would wear woolen clothes, but the combination of white and red was too good too pass.

 I armed him with two axes and gave NMM Gold a try. It didn't succeed and now he looks like a member of the Simpsons family.

 The painting was straightforward and I dropped all the ideas of energy flow shown passing through his eyes and/or axes. Now, he could also be used as a generic giant. He is mounted on a 40mm base and is shown with a flabbergasted explorer down below:

There is little to add, I have to paint a group of the most evil creatures imaginable and then I will get back to finishing sculpting other projects.

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

WIP table and projects

 Hello guys,

while I have insurgents painted that I could show, I've decided to share my WIPs with you. While not everyone likes to share their work in progress, I think it's a great way to get motivated to continue working on project that haven't moved anywhere in weeks (or months :3), plus comments are usually very helpful with ideas. 

Today I'll show you miniatures for Slavic mythology game I've been talking about. For good guys, I will buy a pack of plastic Vikings or Dark Age warriors. I'm still clutching to my money, so I haven't bought a box yet as I figured I'd work on monsters and creatures with what I have at hand. This seemed like a great idea at start, but I think some plastic models would make my life much easier!

To start with - a dragon. There is no mythology worth something that hasn't got dragons in it. I am basing mine to represent something between an olm and carp. So far, only rough framework has been done and I'm not too satisfied. He was done low on ground intentionally, but I think he ended up too low. I think I'll bulky his body further more. Legs are tight at body to make the model more sturdy (which is also a reason he lies on the ground).

 Next, I am working on two centaurs. In Slovene mythology, centaur is called a "Polkonj" (Pou-kon), literally meaning half-horse. Nothing much to say here, they are your ordinary centuars, I plan to arm one with a lance and the other one with a bow. If I can pull it off, I'd make one a female :D.
In tales they are either just as horrible as Cynocephali ("dog heads") in their quest to kill everything human. In western parts of the "Slovene inhabitated area" - today's Italy - Centaurs fight valiantly against Cynocephali to protect humans. To  sum it up - they could be used on both sides.

Moving on, I am converting HorrorClix Fiend ("Frankenstein's monster) to Kresnik. Kresnik is a bit of a complicated figure in Slovene mythology. It is believed to be the main god of ancient Slavs in this area and thus could be representing Perun, Slavic god of thunder under a different name. There are also theories that Kresnik's brother Trot is actually a Peron. To make matters worse, Kresnik is also a demigod protecting humans, fighting spirits and demons that want to hurt humanity. He is kind of a "Slovene Heracles". I've figured I'd use him as a "last resort" in my games - when good guys would get into a losing battle in their campaing, prayer to gods would give them chance to "spawn" Kresnik so that saga can continue.

He is your usual barbarian, long haired, long bearded, dressed in what might be a typical Ancient Slavic clothing and wielding a thunder axe. I am not sure about his other arm and I figured he could use some lightnings or a knife. Or another axe. The only thing better than an axe are two axes.

 

 Moving on, there is a "Malavar" lizard. A giant black lizard, so poisonous, his breath could kill. When you kill one of those, you have to put him on an ant hill and wait long enough that only bones and a diamond he carries under his skin are left there. Im effectively making a small dragon and I got a weird feeling he won't be finished any time soon.

 Lastly in this category, are "Pasjeglavci" (Pasyeglavtsee  - its plural). Cynocephali if you prefer, or the dog-heads. They are described as humans with dog head; beings with human torso, goat legs and dog heads; can't look up and so on and so on. They live on the other side of  the "rotten sea" and hate humans with all their soul. Every now and then a particular vicious dog soldier is born (as a child ofa princess locked in a tower that only has a puppy for a company - you get the picture) and he leads his army against humans. They are a representations for Huns, Mongols, Turks and all other "evil guys". I have used the remaining of my Ungor herd from WG for those and I am quite happy with them. I have cut the ears, turned horns into dog ears and added longer mouth. I like the looks of them and all the bones go along well with their savage nature. As they are from GW, they are much larger than ordinary humans, which is also a plus.  On the other hand, buying some dark age warriors would give me enough humans to turn into dog soldiers.

 Only thing I hated was ridiculously oversized axe, which I believe looks much better now.

 I actually wanted to show you my other WIPs as well (got moderns, Strange aeons and WW2 related miniatures I'm working on), but as this came out to be quite a long post on it's own, I'll show them at a later date. As I've said, I got some insurgents painted and I'd like to show them next time so I don't bury my blog in ideas and half done work.





In other news, I'm going on a representation of a book today. The book is about Rommel and his "visit" to Soča (Isonzo) river during WW1 (Caporetto anyone?). As the author wrote about Rommel's book I've read before and Stormtroopers (my bachelor thesis), I was quite interested at first. I've got the book in my library today to see what I should be expecting and I wasn't overly impressed - a nice read for people that know nothing about it, but apart from some nice maps it seems to be translation of Rommel's book and Wikipedia entries on Stormtroopers and "Infiltration" tactics.

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

600 years since last enthronement of the Carinthian dukes

Hello guys,

not a hobby blog as such, but an introduction to yet another project I'm thinking of starting while I should be painting my moderns! :P

On this day, 600 years are passing since last enthronement of the Carinthian dukes and Carantanian "princes" before them. A ceremony that has been practiced for around 6-7 centuries.

A reconstruction of Carantanian coat of arms. Same symbol (with different colours) is a coat of arms of today's Austrian Styria.

Map of the early Carantania and today's Slovenia. The state was larger at some point in the past, too.

Long story short, in 7th century, Carantania was formed. Carantania is said to be the first Slovenian, and Slavic in general, independent state. It was preceded by a larger (also including today's Czech republic and Slovakia) Samo's (a Frankish merchant turned ruler) tribal union. After his death, Carantania was formed as a result of a revolt against Avars (Avarian?) overrule (Avars were nomadic people similar to the Huns). If I really simplify the history, it was an independent state until middle 9th century, when the Avars have turned their attention to Carantania and other Slavic territories again. Carantanian "prince" (called "Knez" and not really a prince) had to ask Bavarians (western border) for assistance. Bavarians accepted the offer, but under one condition - Carantania had to give up it's outer independance and accept Bavarian (Frankish) over rule and Christianity, as the kingdom's religion. Carantanians agreed and defeated the Avars with Franksih help. As a guarantee, knez Borut (also "Boruth") has sent his son Gorazd ("Cacatius") and his nephew Hotimir ("Cheitimar") to Bavarian duke as hostages. As an interesting fact, they resided on the Herreninsel on the lake Chiemsee (Bavaria), where they have been converted to Christianity. I might want to brag a little and let you know I was there last friday, but there are no remains to be seen there. They returned to Carantania where Gorazd ruled as a first Christian knez, followed after three years by Hotimir. They were expanding Christianity in the region, which was badly received and people were revolting. One of the revolts, against later knez, called Valtunk, was described by our greatest poet (so you know it is good :P) in his magnum opus. A part of it (translated in English!) can be found here, if anyone fancies a hard read :D. Also "Kajtimir" is another name for "Hotimir" and Valjhun is Valtunk, but there is no evidence that he was really Hotimir's son. He was his successor as a knez, that is for sure. Anyways, Bavarians were conquered by Franks in approximately same time and Carantania became part of Frankish and later Holy Roman Empire and so on. In Bavaria, the oldest known Slovenian texts were found - dating from the 10th century. They are Christian texts, probably translated to help with Christianity of the people. Even in 14th century, some parts of today's Slovenia were believed to be "completely wild", as people there still believed in pagan gods.

A future prince speaks to a pesant, sitting on the Stone.

The stone today. On top of it is a Carinthian coat of arms.

Slovenia's 2 euro cents coint

Every Carantanian prince and later Carinthian duke (Carinthia is a part of Austria and partly Slovenia today) was enthroned in Slovenian language, following roughly the same ritual from the first known Carantanian knez Valuk to last Carinthian duke Ernest the Iron on 18th march 1414. After that, the Habsburg rule was strong enough they felt no need to follow the ritual anymore.
The Carantanians (Karantanci) were free members of village communities and were electing their "princes" (and later dukes) following a unique ceremony. The ceremony took place at Krn Castle (today's Krnburg), which was probably the centre of the state. The prince had to swear that he would respect and defend the people's will and their right in front of all the assembled free people. Then the peasant or "kosez" (kosez was actually a member of Knez's personal guard, full time soldier and a sort of a nobleman), sitting on a prince's stone (the capital of an Ionic column from ancient Virunum that was located in the vicinity) would give the sit to the elected prince in exchange for a horse and a specked bull. Even after the Carantanians have lost their independence, the ritual was preserved and the dukes of Carinthia would be enthroned in Slovenian language (or proto-Slavic, if you prefer), but naturally, a King had to be asked for permission and so on. Later, ritual was extended with the use of a Duke's throne, a two-sided throne where new duke and a high ranking Christian priest (the exact title escapes me) were giving away land (feuds). On the throne, the duke had to take his oath in German.
The ritual is said to be so interesting, even Jean Bodin wrote about it (claiming the ceremony is unrivaled in the known history). His texts drew the attention of Thomas Jefferson, who is believed to have incorporated parts of it into the American Constitution.
(modified article  based on Slovenia.si)

Duke's throne at Krnski grad (Krnburg) in 19th century. There is no castle there, if you wondered.

The throne is located on the exact same spot where it always was. As you can see by the quality, it's clearly my photo :D

Other side of the throne. I keep forgetting which one is which.

So, how does this apply to the hobby, you wonder? Well, it doesn't really. But my unofficial scapegoat, Colgar6 keeps drawing my attention to SAGA with his great battle reports (that you should read if you haven't done so yet). As this wasn't enough, he has started a Jason and the Argonauts project, as well. While I've just started working on my moderns, I'm already looking towards either Carantanian warband for SAGA (that I'd never play, but I wouldn't mind converting some plastics as a "soul project") or Jason's tale with a twist - a young Carantanian warrior and his band of soldiers, traveling through the state, engaging the creatures of Slavic mythology (that not much is known about). Probably on their way to save a woman. This is always a valid reason to risk your life. I like both ideas as their core has been done, so rules are there, but in the meanwhile, they weren't done with that twist, so if done right, it would be an interesting project for everyone else, as well.

As plastic boxes for SAGA are full of miniatures, I could probably easily pull out two warbands - either pagan and christian Carantanians, fighting each other (which sounds a bit boring as the only difference would be the flags and symbols I suppose) or Carantanian warband fighting Bavarians and/or Avars. I checked the existing warbands a bit and have decided Pagan Rus is not good enough for what I want, although it fits in regard to the names. "Rus prince" is a knez and "Druzhina" are "družiniki" (druzhinki if you prefer), which, as said, were called Kosezi here. Still, the plain Vikings would perhaps be more suitable...or even someone completely different as bow seems to be popular weapon in Slavic armies of that time. Miniatures might be quite problematic, but as there are known connections between Alpine Slavs and Baltic, I could get away with some Vikings. The Avars are bascially a nomadic horse archers kind of guys and Bavarians are kind of Franks. All I really want to do is sculpt some chainmail over people's faces. That's the second coolest helmet design after Greek Corinthian helmet.

The other one, a mythical journey of brave little men fighting against all odds to achieve something appeals to me more. Not counting the names, Slavic mythology has giants, satyrs, spirits, people with dogs heads, unicorns, centaurs, dragons, basilisks, snakes, cannibals, spirits of headless children, werewolves, death (as a skeleton with a scythe!), witches, gnomes and such, an underwater man, vampires and so on and so on. I did a bit of researching last year for my SA games, if you wonder where the sudden surge of my mythology knowledge came from. I prefer this one as I really enjoyed working on my Strange Aeons lurkers last year. Plus they could all be used for a SA set in Slovenia. I have some trouble separating ancient Slav beliefs from Christian myths, but most of Christian tales are just rebranded ancient Slavic stories. As Strange Aeons is set in interwar era, this is no problem at all for them, but for games set in Carantania, I'd try to be a bit more sure of what I'm putting in....but just a little bit, it's all fantasy after all and as long as it's cool it fits.

The hobby posts with more than blabbering will continue with my next post, honestly!

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo